Various types of seat apparatuses for storing a seat in a storage portion provided within a vehicle have been proposed so far. For example, a vehicle seat disclosed in JP2004196163A illustrated in FIG. 5 includes a seat main body having a seat cushion 92 and a seat back 93. As shown in FIG. 5, when the seat main body positioned at the seating position is not used, it can be moved so as to be stored into a concave portion 95 that is formed on the vehicle floor 94. While the vehicle seat has been operated to be stored in the concave portion 95, the seat back 93 of the vehicle seat is rotated so as to overlap the seat cushion 92.
While the vehicle seat is in a seating position, the seat back 93 can serve as a table in a manner where it is rotated so as to overlap the seat cushion 92. This position is indicated as a table position. The seat apparatus serving as a table is also disclosed in, for example each JP2001322461A and JP10287160A. Usage of such seat apparatus serving as a table when the seat main body is rotated so as to overlap the seat cushion is not limited to the stored-type seat, and it has been applied to various types of seats
The seat apparatus includes an electric seat actuated by electric power. The seat back of such electric seat is generally operated in two manners; one is a reclining operation by which a reclining mechanism of the seat apparatus is controlled to tilt while a user seats on the electric seat, the other is an operation by which the seat back is moved between the seating position and the table position at which the seat back serves as a table. Because each operation has a substantially different characteristic, it is appropriate to use a different switch for each operation.
In order to reduce the cost of the seat apparatus, the operation to move the seat back from the seating position to the table position and the operation to move the seat back from the table position to the seating position is executed by pressing one operation switch. Specifically, if the operation switch is pressed when the seat back is located in the vicinity of the table position, the seat back is moved toward the seating position, and if the operation switch is pressed when the seat back is located in the vicinity of the seating position, the seat back is moved toward the table position. Further, if the operation switch is pressed while the seat back is moving, the seat back is stopped, and at this point, if the operation switch is pressed again, the moving direction of the seat back is determined depending on the position of the seat back at the time.
In this configuration however, when the seat back moving in a first direction is controlled to move in a second direction, which is an opposite direction of the first direction, the seat back needs to be moved further in the first direction for a while, and then the direction of the seat back is switched to the second direction. Thus, it has been considered that such seat apparatus is poor in operability.
A need thus exists to provide a seat apparatus that has an appropriate operationality.